fiddlecollector

Faux whalebone is pretty light as it is ,so if your wanting to move the balance more towards the tip because you feel its frog heavy ,then your only real choice is silk /tinsel lapping which has a negligable weight. Dont forget a thick thumb leather can add almost as much weight as silk/tinsel lapping. Your bow would then weigh around 60 - 61 gms approx. You say that you would like to feel the stick and find the faux whale too thick? Does it currently have a thumb leather on top of it ?

The bow looks very similar to this one sold at Skinners with a Praga violin for over 20K $, if you look at the head and style of adjuster/button. https://www.skinnerinc.com/news/blog/a-charmed-life-eugenio-praga-and-paganini/ It was fasionable in the UK in the late 19th / early 20th century to apply whitelaw varnish (which was a well known commercially available varnish at the time.. advertised everywhere ), to allsorts of instruments ,even put on by well known makers of the time.

Heres the bow that was sold as a seperate lot.

A few weeks back i was interested in a nice vuillaume style bow branded Paquotte Freres at a Scottish auction house , but interestingly they had other stuff particularly a violin supposedly by Eugenio Praga. It was also labelled as varnished with 'Whitelaw varnish'. Most Praga`s ive seen look far more Il Cannone Del Gesu like. Was this genuine or??? It sold for around 5K GBP,which is low if it was a Praga. Even had a stamped bridge. Another lot was a bow branded E Praga Genova. Heres some photos from the auction.

sounds like Tufnol kite phenolic /cotton board (or sometimes paper or glassfibre ), its darker than the cheaper version called Carp, whale,etc. Ive used it to make spare gears/ changewheels for lathe screwcutting. Horrible to work with though , absolutely stinks and the yellow coloured fine dust gets everywhere. Its often used for router table tops and router dovetail templates etc...

Dont know about value but appears to be a nice silver mounted German bow with Wurlitzer stamp from around 1920 - 1950 but needing some repairs.

On looking again at the photos ,the stick you show could be anything as it looks either altered to fit the frog or visa versa. Heres a rather nice early Markneukirchen one showing the cornice seating , that i used to have .

Its a German bow from late 19th century using what is called ' Cornice seating' or 'tongue and groove ', method of fitting frog to the stick, it was used on old bows from Markneukirchen and Mittenwald (also other areas in the region) , yours looks like a cheap bow , a piece has been added to the mortice due to someone lengthening it ,making it too long. Also the adjuster is a later addition, originally it was probably bone.

Therewas a William Evermont Spalding living there ,who's occupation is listed as Cabinet maker. Born in 1829 and died in 1899.

There was an Oscar William Brown living there with his two brothers, from Swedish parents. He died in 1944 aged 73. They were from a farming family.

Have you ever seen the painting? I looked on all the art databases i know of and could only get back as far as 1987.

I like the " bubonic tonewood", interesting name.

Looks fine to me , i dont see much wrong with the stamp. After a certain date he had a legion of honour cross next to the brand. Nice find especially in pernambuco.

Right, i dont think ive seen enough of them to make any kind of judgement. Ones ive seen are all over the place, just like Gaulard ,ive dozens of photos of Gaulards ,and most head shapes and workmanship is different. let alone all the bows Raffin etc.. classes as school of this and that, of which some could have been made by the Harmands. I dont think enough is known about them. Some of the earlier Harmands with a swan neck shaped head are quite nice. But like many of these early bows they are what they are and a product of the era. All that said ive never seen a cello bow by the Harmands, only violin and viola.

Lumpy ,what do you mean by that?? I`ve seen a few and some were quite nice but generally they are undervalued in favour of their more valued contemporaries.